NOTE: The following are no longer acceptable formats for one’s “clown name”
) A disease with the letter -O appended to the end
) A series of hoots known to enrage the local primate population, bestirring them from their usual peaceful fruit-eating
) A distinct whistle
) Whalesong
) A stranger’s social security number, purchased online with a cryptocurrency
) My name, even if prefixed with “The Amazing” or “The Astounding” and certainly not with “The Merely Adequate”
lost time incident 81
Do you watch the news? It’s a dirty habit but some people like to stay informed. You may or may not know that the part of the United States I live in is in the middle of a slow-motion ecological disaster. Acres of California have surrendered to flames and the resulting smoke has drifted down to gift the San Francisco Bay Area with the world’s worst air.
Fellow pedestrians in the last week have adapted speedily to post-apocalyptic couture, some making do with white disposable face masks, while those with deeper pockets sport masks with protruding plastic filters and somehow nobody is shrieking, or shaking the shoulders of passerby.
We pretty much got used to it immediately.
It’s the end of the world, but we’ve still got to get to the office.
Breathing outside for a day is like smoking 14 cigarettes, but some people smoke 14 cigarettes so what’s the big deal?
Anyway, if you haven’t heard from me in awhile, it’s ’cause I had to buy a long enough extension cord to run an air purifier out in the middle of the street, so this should all be cleared up soon. I took care of it.
Just kidding, it’s probably going to happen every year, and we’ll have expensive designer face masks in our closets as seasonal wear until our own homes are consigned to flames and we, now piles of ashes, call in sick to work.
Until that happens, want to read some mildly amusing stuff?
HOW TO OVERTHROW A GOVERNMENT
1. Find out what crabs like to eat. Probably gross stuff.
2. Acquire lots of crab food and feed a lot of crabs.
3. Befriend the crabs. Tell them your vision for a new government. Really sell them on it.
4. March on the seats of power with a motivated crab army of friends and true believers.
5).Chase out the scum with your seething wave of claws! (Once you’ve chased out the scum with yr claws, continue to step 6.)
6. Set a date for free elections (and ban crab feasts)!
HOW TO STEAL A CAR
1. Identify a car. Is it locked? Continue to step 2.
2. Approach the door’s lock. (There should only be one.)
3. Breathe on the lock. That’s it.
4. Press yourself firmly against the lock until you squish in and fill the lock completely.
5. Turn yourself.
6. Enter the car.
7. Write your name on the registration with your best handwriting.
8. Check the back seat for Draculas. If no Draculas, continue to step 10.
9. AAAH! DRACULAS!
10. Finish stealing the car.
SIGNS YOUR EXORCIST MAY NOT BE LEGIT
1. Their sole piece of equipment they call a “Ghostbustin’ stick,” which you suspect is a storm-blown tree limb from your neighbor’s lawn.
2. They claim they learned how to exorcise “from the streets” and so you ask “Which streets?” but when you go to those named streets, they still look pretty haunted actually.
3. When asked their favorite thing about being an exorcist, they say “Working in a field that has no centralized licensing authority.”
[illustration: Pete Toms]
ending theme song
That exorcism bit is an old one, newly rewritten with the benefit of years of experience. It appeared in my last short fiction collection, THE SPIRIT LEFT ME, which I’ve put up for sale on Gumroad even though it’s available for free elsewhere. Just in case anyone wants to give me a dollar.
This version contains all the computer desktop images I put together to promote the book back in the day. That’s something.
Anyway.
How do I usually end these things?
—Michael Van Vleet
Hey! Did you enjoy reading this? But did you find yourself thinking “Dang, if only this sort of thing were delivered directly into my inbox so I didn’t have to spend time on a website as if it were still the 90s or something!”?
You’re in luck! You can subscribe to the LOST TIME INCIDENT newsletter and finally class up your inbox.
1) Find out what crabs like to eat. Probably gross stuff.
2) Acquire lots of crab food and feed a lot of crabs
3) Befriend the crabs. Tell them your vision for a new government. Really sell them on it.
4) March on the seats of power with a motivated crab army of friends and true believers
5) Chase out the scum with your seething wave of claws! (Once you’ve chased out the scum with yr claws, continue to step 6)
6) Set a date for free elections (and ban crab feasts)!
1. Identify a car. Is it locked? Continue to step 2.
2. Approach the door’s lock. (There should only be one.)
3. Breathe on the lock. That’s it.
4. Press yourself firmly against the lock until you squish in and fill the lock completely.
5. Turn yourself.
6. Enter the car.
7. Write your name on the registration with your best handwriting.
8. Check the back seat for Draculas. If no Draculas, continue to step 10.
9. AAAH! DRACULAS!
10. Finish stealing the car.
Get your holiday shopping done early at TEETH WAREHOUSE!
We’ve got 18 store rooms full of big teeth, little teeth, round teeth, square teeth, gold teeth, steel teeth, teeth-teeth, and for the kids: GUMMY TEETH!
Make sure every present under the tree this holiday season clacks like maracas when shaken! That’s the sound of DEALS trying to CHEW THEIR WAY OUT!
A version of the CLUE board game where the setting is an alley.
Locations include:
The Stain. The Dumpster. Maybe A Cat.
The Loose Pile of Bricks and Newspaper.
A Locked Door. A Barred Window. The Entrance/Exit.
The Shadows Where Switchblades Sing.
The Point After Which, Once Passed, One Cannot Safely Run Out of the Alley.
Where the Light Stops.
A club where the password is changed with every breath: Members meet in the lobby, ears pressed to the door, hoping to hear the doorman whisper the passphrase through the keyhole and then repeat it back quickly enough to be let in. A haunted house where ghosts are made of unpaid bills. A new national holiday called Where Is Tim? There are billboards. Tim grows a mustache in preparation and fuels a boat. All sandals are 10% off. Hi! How are you.
The discovery that your bones have a yearbook and they all signed encouraging notes to each other. The world’s last milkman and the world’s most indulgent cow and a tiny cottage where a Victrola plays a single yodeling song: domestic bliss. The lark and the elm and the ants. Wind scatters snapshots of a young couple & their puppets: Mr. Ears. Timothy Tiger. He-Tastes-Secrets. An unnamed bear. The photos are on a film type they don’t make anymore. We’re still here. You’re still here.
Okay, who here likes magic? You like magic tricks? Great, let’s do a magic trick.
I’m going to need something of value from a volunteer in the audience. Oh, very nice, what’s this? Your “attention?” Lovely.
Now watch very carefully… keep your eyes on it… and VOILA!
Your “attention” has been transmuted via powers unknown into “a complete waste of time.” Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, thank you.
1. Their sole piece of equipment they call a “Ghostbustin’ stick,” which you suspect is a storm-blown tree limb from your neighbor’s lawn.
2. They claim they learned how to exorcise “from the streets” and so you ask “Which streets?” but when you go to those named streets, they still look pretty haunted actually.
3. When asked their favorite thing about being an exorcist, they say “Working in a field that has no centralized licensing authority.”
[illustration: Pete Toms]
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